Raising The Bar: Are Your Kid’s Pictures Online?

When asked, as part of the TNTMommy Blogger initiative, to review an upcoming episode of Raising The Bar I was pretty curious. Firstly you may want to know what is Mommy Niri doing on TNT or Raising The Bar. Has she gone all entertainment on you? Well, not quite., for the better part of the day I am still subjected kiddie programs . The advanced episode preview I received over a week ago, titled “No Child Left behind”, deals with the issue of having your children’s pictures online and the ramifications thereof.

This episode, without giving away too much of the plot (scheduled to be aired Monday 29th at 10:00pm), has a dad who takes an innocent picture of his child in the bath tub and the photo is subsequently “stolen” and sold by a pornography site. The father is then tried as a sex-offender. The thought behind the charge is the father provided the ammunition the pornography needed, and though to me it is ludicrous to label a dad the somewhat harsh tag of sex offender, the doubts do arise as to whose responsibility is it to protect our children online.

I was about to write up a post when I got offered an opportunity to talk to Mark-Paul Gosselaar, the actor in the acclaimed series. On speaking to him, along with a handful of bloggers, the “dad” in him was apparent as he related that he was cautious about having his kid’s pictures taken but could also understand parents taking pictures at any moment. On being asked about how effective the laws currently be to really persecute someone, he led us to the expert in the matter.

The lawyer/writer David Feige was kind enough to share that the current laws are very clear and though social media might be relatively new, the laws were stringent enough to ensure children were not exploited. Somewhat reassuring yet I am still debating the safety 0f those pictures that are posted online.